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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24392173">Receding Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prism_Streak/pseuds/Prism_Streak'>Prism_Streak</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cats - Andrew Lloyd Webber, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats - T. S. Eliot</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Arranged Marriage, Do I need to tag major character death if they're already dead?, Ghosts, I think not, Multi, Supernatural Elements</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:02:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,765</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24392173</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prism_Streak/pseuds/Prism_Streak</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tugger is in the middle of an adjustment period. New house (that he didn't pick), new wife (that he didn't pick), new ghost haunting his room (that he CERTAINLY didn't pick). It's a lot to take in. He just wants to get back to playing in his band, but life (and death) seem to have other plans for him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mr. Mistoffelees/Rum Tum Tugger (Cats), Rum Tum Tugger &amp; Demeter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>47</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thank you to my wonderful, wonderful beta, MagicalMarvelous! For sitting through both my stories, and for dealing with my erratic writing schedule, I owe you.  </p>
<p>This fic will probably be fairly short, although not every chapter will be as short as this one. I can't promise when it will update, but I'm hoping to have it done decently soon.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Being rich and important </span>
  <em>
    <span>sucked</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was the thought that ran through Tugger's head as he stood at the altar, watching his future wife walk down the aisle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's not that he didn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>like</span>
  </em>
  <span> Demeter. She was nice, and pretty, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>sweet</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and they got along fine. She just wasn't at all his type. She was sensible and down to earth, and had a mind for organization. And she was a woman. Not really up Tugger's alley. Not to mention she was hopelessly in love with his older brother. But their families had a </span>
  <em>
    <span>contract</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and it would secure both of their futures, so here they were. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tugger and Demeter weren't the first to fall victim to this… agreement, nor did they have it the worst. Both families were incredibly old fashioned, and had a </span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> about eldest children. Munkustrap and Bombalurina would have to have at least one kid, as per the piece of paper their parents signed when they were like… five. At least Tugger was free of </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> obligation. But for business reasons or financial reasons or whatever reasons his father had come up with (Tugger had never listened) it was important that the two families stay close, hence the arrangement between Tugger and Demeter. Just in case something happened to Munk and Bomba. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He wished he'd been signed away to some other family instead. He really did like Demeter, but if he had to marry a woman he certainly wouldn't have picked her. Perhaps he'd have gone to Rumpleteazer, who was a lot more fun and was also gay. It would have made things a hell of a lot easier. And at least Rumpleteazer had a hot brother. But alas, Tugger's fate had been sealed since… well since before he was born, considering Demeter was three years older than him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The wedding passed in a blur, as Tugger and Demeter repeated the generic vows that had been written for them and kissed for as short a time as they could get away with. They exited the church hand in hand, fake smiles firmly in place. The reception was only slightly better, with an endless stream of people neither of them had met coming to congratulate them on a wedding they had nothing to do with. There, at least, they had cake and dancing. And drinking. Demeter didn't drink, but she did dance, and she did eat cake, and they managed to have a decent time once they got all the smiling at older, richer people out of the way. True, Demeter danced more with Munkustrap than she did with Tugger (leaving him to hang around the bar with Bombalurina, something he didn't mind in the slightest) and true, Tugger got no fewer than eleven comments on how it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>so sad his mother couldn't make it</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but overall it didn't go as badly as it could have, and Tugger and Demeter got to retire to their hotel room peacefully and early. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They spent the night watching the worst movies they could find, and eating leftover cake with Munkustrap and Bombalurina. It was far and away the best part of the whole wedding thing.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Two weeks later they moved into their new house.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was large, and very, very old. A Victorian mansion, packed full of history and prestige and beautiful antiques. Tugger didn't mind. The couches were comfortable and there was a fireplace. The kitchen was large, and there were three whole bathrooms. The backyard was </span>
  <em>
    <span>huge</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It was pretty removed from, well, everything, but wherever they lived would have been. Their parents had chosen it, and their parents thought privacy was important. Tugger thought convenience stores were also important, but no one had asked him. And it was close to Demeter's job. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tugger only had five boxes to move in. Three were stuffed full of clothes, while the other two held random decor for his room. Luckily the contract said nothing about having to share with Demeter, so he would get to have his own space. He had chosen the attic, which was insulated and furnished, and more importantly had two rooms. His bedroom was small, but he got a living room all to himself and his instruments, completely out of Demeter's way. They were both perfectly happy with the arrangement. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>While Demeter had chosen the elegant, old furniture that came with the house for her spaces, Tugger had no desire to live surrounded by the Victorian Era, and went the IKEA route. It cost him two nights of sleeping on an air mattress as he assembled everything, but the result was incredibly satisfying. It made the space feel like it truly belonged to him, even if the rest of the house never would. On the third day his instruments were set up, and he could settle back into his life.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He and Demeter rarely saw each other. They ate together at breakfast and dinner, and would sometimes watch a movie, but other than that they gave each other space. They were friends, but they had never been close. It was likely to take years for them to get there, they were nothing alike and most of their time spent together had until then been in the context of family gatherings, or visiting each other's siblings. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Mostly they stayed out of each other's way. By the second week they'd settled into a routine of Demeter working and Tugger letting her work. His band would practice while she was out, and he would make sure all was quiet by the time she got home. He cooked, she cleaned. It was a hollow form of domesticity, but if Tugger tried, he found he could be comfortable in it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That was when the dreams started.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He dreamed of… well, nothing at first. Nothing out of the ordinary. He dreamed of the house, of surreal hidden passages and roommates that didn't exist in real life, yet he'd known for years in the dream. As dreams went, the first was mundane. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Eventually, Dream-Tugger found himself in the garden all alone. He'd never seen the garden in bloom, but the dream-garden was covered in flowers. They claimed the stone wall and flowed onto the path, a river of color more vivid than anything he'd ever seen, dreaming or awake. And he </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> dreaming; though he hadn't really stopped to consider it before (as one often doesn't when dreaming) he was now incredibly sure of it. The dream-flowers moved in a wind he couldn't feel, but the direction in which it blew their petals lured him deeper into the garden. He let his feet carry him to the center, where he stood and listened to the wind. It whistled in his ears, and rustled the millions of flowers at his feet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There were voices in that wind. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dream-Tugger called out. He felt the sound leave his throat, but never heard it in the air; it vanished with the wind. He was alone in the garden, yet there was someone </span>
  <em>
    <span>there</span>
  </em>
  <span>, very close to him and yet very far away. He felt it in his bones, in his mouth, in his fingertips. Which was odd, since Dream-Tugger usually didn't feel at all. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The whisper of the wind grew louder, swirling around him and pulling the flowers from the ground, raising them up to cling to him like ivy, and they took hold of his legs and began to climb, encircling him and taking root in his feet and his legs and his hands. He could almost make out what the wind was saying, then, the sounds it made. It was speaking, but in a language he couldn't understand, one he'd never heard. As he strained to hear it the flowers climbed on, up onto his torso and his shoulders and finally onto his face, where they made their way into his mouth and eyes and finally his ears, blocking out the voices of the wind. He woke up in the early morning before the sun had risen, sweating despite the coolness of the autumn air coming through his open window. An image lingered in his mind, one that he was sure hadn't been in the dream.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A pair of deep, black eyes.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Eyes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you once again to my wonderful, wonderful beta, MagicalMarvelous! This chapter is dedicated to her, because it took so damn long to produce and she's been waiting so patiently for it. </p><p>"I'll have it done decently soon" I said. Well as you can see, that didn't happen and I'm not even gonna lie this time it'll probably be a hot minute before I update this. But I will, this story will eventually be both finished and posted, I swear.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The dreams continued over the next few weeks. Sometimes Dream-Tugger was in the garden again, listening to the wind, or the fish in the fish pond that did not exist in the waking world. Sometimes he wandered the halls, looking for something, although he didn't know what, as the wallpaper changed around him, cycling through styles and decades. On one occasion, Dream-Tugger found himself on the roof of the house during a thunderstorm, in which lightning flashed red as a wildfire. Always pushed, always pulled, he moved through the dreams like a marionette, aware but unable to decide where he went or what he did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He always knew he was dreaming. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The eyes, too, remained. He never saw them, but he felt their presence by his side, keeping him company, holding him hostage. They were never threatening, never intrusive, he got the sense that the dreams were something they were experiencing together, he and whatever it was. The voices he'd first heard in the wind also returned; in the floorboards and in his footsteps and in the rumble of thunder. They whispered to him and to each other, excited and mocking and still just out of his reach. He felt if he strained, just concentrated, he'd hear what they were saying. But he never did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the dreams, he was never lonely. In the dreams, he was never hungry, or tired, or angry. In the dreams he was calm, at peace in a way Waking-Tugger had never been. Dream-Tugger could not speak, nor move, but with that came a freedom that in his waking life he was never afforded, the freedom to simply be. To be and to feel and to live, without blood or breath, without pain or panic or fear. In a way, he loved the dreams. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And the more he loved them, the more they came. Soon, he found the ever-changing dream house waiting for him every night. The house, and the thing with the eyes.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>He couldn't tell Demeter. He knew, in his gut, that there was something wrong. The dreams weren't natural, they weren't normal. He'd chalk them up to stress, to the emotional turmoil of the biggest adjustment period of his life, if they weren't so… honest. Real. Whatever lived in them felt so </span>
  <em>
    <span>there</span>
  </em>
  <span>, so much like a person that he couldn't believe his mind capable of fabricating it. And even if he did try to tell her, where would he start?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since the wedding, they hadn't spoken very much. Not about anything personal or important, anyway. Not for lack of wanting to, at least not on Tugger's part, but it was awkward. They'd known each other their whole lives, yet barely knew anything about each other past basic interests. It seemed a bit late for first date conversations. The only other thing Tugger could think to say was "I'm sorry you had to marry me," but they both knew that already. She was sorry too, but neither of them were to blame. It had been almost a month, and they were still almost strangers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wasn't someone to confide in. He supposed he could tell Bomba, but she would more likely than not laugh at him. It was the kind of thing they'd tried to freak each other out with as teenagers, so there was no reason for her to take it seriously now. Munkustrap didn't believe in the supernatural, and would brush him off. And other than his family… who did he have, really? The twins, he supposed, Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer. They were in the band with him and Bombalurina, but emotionally he kept them a bit at arm's length. They were agents of chaos, even as adults, and Tugger was just not as good at staying unarrested as they were. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, this was something Tugger would deal with alone. </span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The eyes haunted him in his waking hours, too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not that they were really there. After days (or perhaps it was weeks) of dreams, dreams he could remember but couldn't comprehend, the eyes refused to leave his mind. The eyes belonged to something, he was sure now. It left his side every morning, between sleeping and waking. But the image of the eyes, the absence at his side stayed. And more than ever before, Tugger was lonely. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was drifting from Demeter, or maybe she was drifting from him. He didn't know. Where before there had been conversation, a polite sort of camaraderie, now there was quiet. They passed each other like ships in the night, only ghosts haunting the same halls. He thought, perhaps, the house was getting to her too. He heard her talking to herself, when he walked past her bathroom on his way to bed, late at night. Or perhaps he imagined it, perhaps the solitude had conjured her voice in place of someone, some</span>
  <em>
    <span>thing</span>
  </em>
  <span> else's. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He spent his days in his attic, preferring true, physical solitude to facing the distance that was the spaces he and Demeter shared. He tried to write songs, his attempts to draw melodies and rhythms out of his guitar, then his keyboard, drums, bagpipes, all came to naught. He tried to watch tv, but found there was no difference between his laptop and the wall. Nothing in the world of the waking, the world of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>living</span>
  </em>
  <span>, felt truly there. He walked through his life like a phantom, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. </span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The garden had a pond in it, and they sat adrift in a boat on a beautiful sunny day. Tugger could hear birds, hear cicadas, hear crickets that were far away on shore. He leaned over to let his hand dip into the water, and watched the trails it left behind. He watched the fish below them, almost catfish and goldfish and koi. They swam around each other in patterns, up into Tugger's field of view, around their companions, and back down to where Tugger couldn't see. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was happy. He was not distant, he was not drifting, he was not lonely. He wasn't sure he ever had been. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He withdrew his hand from the water, and instead tilted his face up to the sun, closing his eyes and allowing himself to feel the warmth and peace that came with the light. While earlier there had been not a cloud in the sky, they now spread over the sky and over the horizon, rising in tall majestic shapes and hanging low over the distant trees. They reflected the sunset, the sunrise, the beautiful noon and peaceful night that lingered and overstayed its welcome. When he opened his eyes the clouds were gone, and he only saw the stars, reflected in the lake and the sky and his own skin. The arch of a crescent moon made it so that if he tilted his head just so, the sky was smiling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Across from him, the thing with the eyes reached out and took his hand. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Only after breakfast the next morning did it occur to him that this was the first dream in which he could move. </span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>It was five miles to the nearest convenience store, which was a quickcheck. Twelve to the nearest 7-11. When Munkustrap and Bombalurina visited, Tugger asked Munk if he'd like to walk to the 7-11 to get some doughnuts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Are you alright?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They were the first words Munk had spoken to him, </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> spoken to him since the wedding. And Tugger wanted so, so badly to be able to tell his brother he was doing well. Of all the people he moved past like oil in water, after so long living as a ghost, Munk was the first, the only person who felt solid and real. After days… or, he supposed, it was months now, of ignoring calls and sending one and three word texts, Munk was there with him. Human, warm, </span>
  <em>
    <span>present</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He'd meant to tell Munk so many things. He'd pulled him away, onto the infinite twelve mile suburban backroad to tell him everything. That he and Demeter never talked, and how he wished Munk could take his place, live and be happy with Demeter, the way they both deserved. How he was sure he was going crazy, waiting to hear and see things he'd never heard or seen, things that were fundamentally impossible. About the presence in his dreams, about the weight it lifted from his chest and the warmth when it took his hand. The way he needed Munk to set him straight, make him listen for once, convince him to go to therapy or a mental hospital or whatever it would take to bring him back to the waking world. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, he had no answer. In the end, he just put his arms around Munk and hid in his shoulder, letting the way he held on speak for itself. He felt Munk's arms curl around him, a hand coming to rest on the back of his head, and gently stroke his hair as Munk muttered something he couldn't make out, but that was steady and calm. They stood there on the side of the road, the wall that had sprung up between them blowing away in the wind of each passing car. </span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They didn't get the doughnuts. They bought three giant bags of Smartfood popcorn, a family sized pack of twizzlers, a number of apple and caramel cups, a shitty 7-11 pizza, about as many Arizona cans as they could reasonably carry the twelve miles back to Tugger's house, and two slurpees. Blue for Tugger, red and Coca-Cola for Munk. There was something that kept them from calling it 'brown'. Good as it was, there was something about the term 'brown slurpee' that was inherently unappealing. The way it had always been. The shopping list of family arguments and ended friendships. Emotional crisis food. They all needed it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only thing missing from their trip home was their skateboards, and suddenly, for a moment, they felt like brothers again. </span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>He stood in the master bedroom, one hand on the tall post rising from the foot of the bed. It somewhat occurred to him he'd never been there, which was strange because he'd been there a thousand times. He'd woken up there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The blanket was a dark green. He couldn't tell what it felt like, whether it was a quilt or a duvet or simply there to make the blankets under it look pretty. Maybe it was velvet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It felt unusually dim. The room got plenty of light, between the bay window and the oil lamps. But the lamps were out, and the light from the window was a cold, unyielding grey. The curtains were still partially drawn, and the sunbeams formed patterns on the floor; they were nothing in particular, but they were ever-moving and beautiful. Tugger allowed the stillness, the serenity of the moment to wash over him, and he watched them for a little while. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Soon enough, however, he knew he must get on with… something. Delivering a letter, maybe. It was sitting on the writing desk that he didn't remember as having previously been in the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He walked to the window, the wood of the floorboards not quite cold under his bare feet. He put a hand on one of the velvet curtains, releasing a small cloud of glitter, or perhaps dust that danced in the early morning sunshine. He drew the curtain back, surprisingly unsurprised at how heavy it was, and tied it up with the black cord that hung from the wall. He did the same to the other curtain, allowing cold winter light to fill the room. The curtains gone, he stood in the window, looking down through the middle pane at the world below him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the garden, his garden, and yet it was not. Where there had once been paths and walkways there were now busy streets, and in the spaces the flower beds had occupied, rows upon rows of houses stretched out before him. what was once the sitting area was a beautiful park, the old unused fountain a grand nineteenth century statue. Snow swirled lightly outside of the window, blanketing the city with a kind of timeless light and breaking up the grey monotony of the sky. Below him, the streetlights began to go out, and he watched as the world awoke. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He felt, rather than heard, the creak of the floorboards, the rustling of the blankets on the bed. There were footsteps, and the room felt just a bit warmer, the sky seemed less grey. He felt hands, and then arms -arms that he'd come to expect- wrap around him, the hands joining again somewhere just below his ribcage. He felt a head leaning into his back, and come to rest, weightless, in the space between his shoulder blades. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He lifted his own hand and held on, quietly holding the arms, the embrace, closer to him. He watched the snow dance in the early morning light, beautiful behind the glass that held them there, that kept the rest of the world away. The moment was frozen- if not in time, in his memory, forever. He wished it would never end, that he could stay looking through the glass, with these arms around him for all of time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suddenly the inevitability of waking was unbearable. Once he was gone he would never return this this place, this moment, because no two dreams were the same. He held tighter the arms he couldn't see, the silence deafening in his ears. He was held closer in turn, as they clung to this one scrap of quiet, of contact that they were afforded by time. In that frozen moment, nothing else mattered. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>"What's your name?" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The arms around him tensed, but did not let go, or push him away. The heartbeat that wasn't there quickened, the breath he couldn't feel became shallow. It was only for a second, but already he was opening his mouth again, to say that it was fine, really, he didn't have to know and it would be ok if he never knew and if it's better this way then by all means- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But before the words could pass his lips, they died, quieted by the arms holding him closer, tighter, and then-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A voice, only a gentle whisper against his back, a sound meant only for him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"Mistoffelees."</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Please leave a comment, let me know what you think! Constructive criticism is appreciated, as long as you're kind!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please feel free to leave constructive criticism, or any comments at all! They make me incredibly happy, and it helps me write faster to know that people are enjoying my work. So remember: 1 comment =1 day closer to the next update!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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